Archive for the 'Experience Design' topic

Storytelling is a powerful way to measure our understanding of our users and their experiences. But unfortunately, we don’t always get the story right. User experience rests more on listening to what the users want to tell us rather than the stories research teams and designers tell themselves within the confines of their organizations. Perhaps it’s time to first try story listening before recanting the tales.

When we add new features, we often force them to break the habits they’ve carefully formed. That’s what makes our users upset when we change the design unexpectedly. Their old habits no longer deliver the value they once did, and now they have to form new ones.

[ Transcript Available ] There’s a saying that you can’t know where you are going unless you know where you come from. Designing navigation for enterprise applications is a journey unto itself. One that UX Immersion speaker, Hagan Rivers is quite familiar with. In this podcast, listen as Jared Spool discusses the importance of clear […]

Enterprise applications are massive, often unwieldy pieces of software. You get a sense they were never truly improved or updated, they just had a continuous string of features tacked on until it got to the point where they are almost impossible to use. And they’re old.

Organizations need to approach every problem and decision from a design viewpoint. Jared connects the UX Advantage themes together to form a framework for how we tackle the amazing challenges ahead of us.

I’m betting you’ve hit one of these challenges: Designing for larger and more varied audiences than ever before Working more closely with non-designers, stakeholders, and influencers Dealing with applications so complex that your users are practically collapsing under the chaos Struggling to integrate design into your organization’s strategic direction I’ve put together this great UX conference to focus on these […]

Traditionally, user research has taken on more of a scientific identity. You would do usability testing and research, take a ton of notes, and then compile all of your findings into a report. The effectiveness of that research depended on whether anyone read the report, and then if they could do anything actionable with that data.

The expansion of the web past a desktop-based world into more of a multi-device ecosystem has caused organizations to re-evaluate almost everything they do. Style guides have had to grow to accommodate this new reality of multiple screens sizes and resolutions. When you start incorporating the multitude of products across devices and all the people working on them, organizations are forced to think more “systematically.”

The notion of being a “designer who can code” has been a prevalent topic in recent years. Delivering static PDFs and working in photoshop is seen as inefficient in some circles. Being able to create a clickable or even responsive mockup to present to developers and stakeholders can be a better way to show your intent. It’s also much easier to iterate by changing a few lines of code.

Understanding is what user experience as a field hinges upon. After all if you don’t understand how users are interacting with your product or service, you don’t know what to design for. But how, as a team, do you come to that understanding? Telling the story of a user’s journey highlights areas where you’re right on point and where you’re missing the mark.